Back in the 60’s and 70’s, hippies occasionaly walked under the rainbow flag during peace walks. The rainbow flag, with the seven traditional colours, violet at the top, red at the bottom, and ‘peace’ written across in white, is still the peace movement’s symbol. For instance, they are an important symbol in the Bible, where it represents the promise of peace from God to Noah, and several Christian groups have used it in their iconography. Of course, rainbows are symbols beyond the LGBTQ+ community.
Activist Clive Jones and artist Gilbert Baker had the idea to create a flag using the colours of the rainbow to celebrate diversity and hope.īaker was inspired by the symbolism of the Civil Rights Movement’s flag and by “The Wizard of Oz” movie in which Judy Garland, gay icon of the 50’s and 60’s sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay politician, municipal counselor in San Francisco.
The LBGTQ+ flag answered Harvey Milk’s call for a positive unifying symbol for the community. Violet was also a common symbol of gay pride during the 60’s and 70’s, when the people of San Francisco used the “purple hand” and Boston’s gay community adorned posters with a purple rhino. Pink is another colour of significance: forced to wear a pink triangle during the Holocaust, the gay community reclaimed it as a pride symbol afterwards. In Australia, yellow was used for the same purpose.
This flower was allegedly worn in Paris and London in the late 19th and early 20th century as a discrete expression of homosexuality. Oscar Wilde, for example, was known for the green carnation ( 1)he wore on his jacket. Historically, gay people were forced to hide and they used colors, among other things, to recognize each other. Therefore, we took the occasion of it currently being LGBTQ+ history month in the United Kingdom ( on twitter), to delve into the history of the flag that has become our signature banner.
If everyone knows that the American flag represents the 13 founding states and the current 50 states, that the Union Jack is the union of the English cross of Saint George, the Scottish cross of Saint Andrew, and the Irish cross of Saint Patrick, or that the French flag combines the blue and red of the city of Paris with the white of the fallen monarchy, few know the history of the Rainbow flag, how it was born and what exactly it represents for the LGBTQ+ community. Each flag tells the story of the group rallying behind it. Flags have replaced the shields of old, but the symbolism remains the same. Since the dawn of time, people have banded together behind “colours” representing their families, their beliefs, their nations. We are all the genders, races and ages.” Gilbert Baker, creator of the Rainbow Flag That really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors. It’s beautiful, all of the colors, even the colors you can’t see. “The rainbow is a part of nature and you have to be in the right place to see it.